PT Blogosphere

Ingrid Calame: Tracks

James Kalm visits the exhibition Ingrid Calame: Tracks at James Cohan Gallery, New York, on view through February 8, 2014.

As noted in the gallery press release, the show centers around the installation "Indianapolis Motor Speedway Pits #4, #7, #9, #26, #32, #33, #35, #37, #39, #40 ... a vibrantly-colored large-scale pounce wall drawing wrapping around all four walls of the main gallery and incorporating tracings of tire tracks from the Indy Speedway. Calame has worked in the Renaissance technique of pounce transfer since 2010, executed by pushing powdered pigment through a perforated template to apply a dotted under-drawing to the wall behind. This installation is her first to layer pounce patterns, combining the intricate forms of rubber skid marks on diamond-cut asphalt to kaleidoscopic effect. As she explains, 'I try to control how the pigment transfers through the holes in the paper but there is a lot of chance—pouncing causes little explosions through each hole that radiate out. It is an event, like a drawing/dance.'"

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Magdalen Chua blogs about the exhibition Ingrid Calame at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh on view through October 9, 2011.

Chua writes: "Though emerging as paintings with energetic and abstract shapes, Calame's works evolve from a painstaking process that originates from the representation of cracks and stains of the physical environment... the tenor of the exhibition is upbeat, and appears to convey a sense of discovery from the act of recreation. "

In the interview introduction, Stranahan describes experiencing Grosse's work: "Walking down the stairs towards the Nasher’s small downstairs gallery, it was very clear that Grosse’s installation is anything but polite. The small gallery is filled with soil that had been sculpted into an uneven terrain, including a couple of canvases that came out of the earth and leaned against the building’s walls. Multicolored paint covered the ground and raced up across the canvases onto walls before dripping back down into the soil... As I very carefully picked my way over the uneven ground, my senses were literally on overdrive. Under my feet was the unusual sensation of the hardened dirt, and as I looked down to concentrate on where to step, my entire field of vision was taken over by the bold colors of this almost Martian terrain."

Painters' Table

About Painters' Table

Edited by artist Brett Baker, Painters' Table highlights writing from the painting blogosphere as it is published and serves as a platform for exploring blogs that focus primarily on the subject of painting.